Sunday, September 18, 2011

First 2-Tiered Cake!!

Hey everyone~ As you may know, we have all ascended to level 3, the last and final level in our pastry arts program. As such, we are advancing in all our skills and one of which is building of wedding cakes. One of our first forays into tiered cakes was the 2-tiered Cardinal cake. 2 layers of cake, frosted with buttercream and wrapped in chocolate. Yes, wrapped in chocolate.

What do I mean? Using oil based/cocoa butter colours, we painted on acetate to create our very own transfer sheets! We were allowed to come up with our own designs and for mine, I decided to go with the pastel folk art route~ I knew those days of folk art painting with my auntie Jessie would one day come in useful :)

 If you wonder how tiered cake stand up despite the weight of the layers stacked on top, we use straws!! Beneath the smaller tier, are 2 straws pushed into the first layer to hold the weight of the cake on top.

 This cake was so fluffy it poofed up almost past the edge of the kitchen aid bowl~

 The tiny tier~ Aren't they cute??

 Here is my painted strip of acetate for the bottom tier wrap~ Once painted, tempered white chocolate was poured on top and left to slightly set. when still malleable but not dripping (a very thin line) the chocolate was wrapped around the bottom frosted tier~ I wish I could take a photo of it but when wrapping chocolate, you need both hands. You actually could benefit with an extra set to be perfectly honest!!

 Leave the acetate strip on to set, the longer it is left to set at room temperature, the brighter the shine once peeled off. Ideally, well tempered chocolate will shrink and contract from the acetate.

 The frosted top tier was wrapped with a strip of acetate that had dual coloured tempered chocolate drizzled on top

For the finishing touch, chocolate roses :)

FYI, click on the images for a closeup view!

xoxox

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